Measles claims another life in US – and RFK Jr lauds vaccine

A second child has died of measles in the midst of an outbreak of cases that has now affected around 642 people in the US since January, and the hospital treating her has confirmed she was not vaccinated and had no underlying health conditions.

The new fatality, which involved an eight-year-old girl in Texas, prompted Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to reaffirm the value of immunisation in protecting children, saying: "The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine."

It is the second death of an unvaccinated child in the latest outbreak, while an adult is also suspected of dying of measles in neighbouring New Mexico, and two other children have been hospitalised with the virus in Texas. The deaths are the first thought to be caused by the infection in around 10 years and have been attributed to reduced vaccination coverage.

Measles was considered eliminated as a public health concern in the US in 2000, but the rise of anti-vaccine scepticism means that more and more children are failing to get the routine MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) jab to provide protection.

At the same time, there was a falloff in immunisation rates during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, denting the target of 95% population coverage needed to achieve herd immunity. Crucially, vaccination rates have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, further raising the risk of outbreaks

Declining measles vaccination isn't a problem confined to the US. Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF issued an alert over a doubling in measles cases in the European region in 2024 to 127,350, including 37 deaths, with epicentres in Romania and Kazakhstan.

Kennedy said he attended the funeral yesterday of the latest dead child – named as Daisy Hildebrand – to "console the families and to be with the community in their moment of grief" and to "learn how our HHS agencies can better partner with them to control the measles outbreak."

The comments in support of immunisation come against a backdrop of years of vaccine scepticism voiced by Kennedy, with Politico noting that as recently as a month ago he was warning people of the dangers of MMR, saying it "does cause deaths every year."

That comment – made on Fox News – was followed by a statement from the American Medical Association (AMA), which called MMR "extraordinarily safe and effective."

It added: "Measles is extremely contagious and can cause life-threatening illness. There is no cure or specific antiviral treatment for measles. Vaccination remains the best defence against measles infection."

Kennedy has also backed the use of vitamins to treat the disease whilst insisting vaccination should be a matter of personal choice. 

His stance on vaccination prompted the abrupt departure last month of the director of the FDA's Centre for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Peter Marks, who said the HHS Secretary was peddling "misinformation and lies."

Admits HHS layoffs went too far

Meanwhile, Kennedy told reporters last week that around one in five of the approximately 10,000 layoffs at HHS agencies had been made in error and need to be corrected, according to a CBS News report.

However, he claimed re-hires were "always part of the plan" for staffing cuts led by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), saying it had been intended from the outset "to do 80% cuts, but 20% of those are going to have to be reinstated, because we'll make mistakes."

For now, there is no evidence that a mass re-hire programme is underway, and, in the meantime, major concerns remain about the ability of agencies like the FDA, CDC, and NIH to fulfil their roles in the face of widespread disruption to operations and a demoralised workforce.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash